


Us, in the past tense.

by bamboozledbylife



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bittersweet, M/M, Post-Break Up, this could be in canon but it works better not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 05:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15017771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bamboozledbylife/pseuds/bamboozledbylife
Summary: A bottle of whiskey, passed back and forth. Smoke in his eyes, his lungs; lips and tongue coated with a finish of nicotine. Sitting on the concrete like they have nowhere else to go. Back then, they didn’t. Right now, they pretend."You ruined us, you know? You did it on purpose."





	Us, in the past tense.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr bamboozledbylife

“I miss this.” He gestures loosely between them. “I miss us.”

A bottle of whiskey, passed back and forth. Smoke in his eyes, his lungs; lips and tongue coated with a finish of nicotine. Sitting on the concrete like they have nowhere else to go. Back then, they didn’t. Right now, they pretend.

Another cigarette butt’s tossed, one more to an ever growing pile. Chrollo isn’t a smoker, which isn’t to say he never smokes. Hisoka isn’t a smoker either, but he refuses to even touch the shit. He hates the smell, the taste, the look. Hates the way it clings to his clothes, his hair, his body.  
It wasn’t a habit for Chrollo, but something about Hisoka always made him want to. Made him need to.

“You ruined us, you know?” A knowing glance tells him, he does. A bitter laugh tells him, he’s glad. “You did it on purpose, too.”

The drink burns. They, as them, were ancient history. Bad blood running anew with every encounter. Scars, tearing open so easily they may have never closed. A good thing not lost, but abandoned.

“I heard you have someone new.”  
“Rumors will be the death of you.”  
“Funny,” another drink burns only half so much as the first, “I used to say that about you.” The words hang a second, staggered for impact. “Illumi Zoldyck. You’re certainly trading up.”  
“He isn’t like you, and we-” their fingers brush when the bottle changes hands- “we aren’t like us.”  
“Is that a warning or a reassurance?” The good times weren’t just happy, they were manic. Joy found in mutually assured destruction. The worst decision he’d ever made. He’d known that since the beginning, the very start. Since the first hello. “Do you make him happy?”  
“Shouldn’t you ask _me_ if I’m happy?  
“You aren’t. You never have been, don’t know how to be. Nobody could ever make you happy, but you still try and then, inevitably, when they cannot, you break them, like a petulant child.”  
“I don’t know how he feels.” Criticism brushed off like dirt on his palms, casually and without a second thought. “But like I said,” the bottle is thrust back to Chrollo, forced into his hands, “he isn’t you.”  
“Was that your only standard? Seems a little shallow.”  
“Jealousy isn’t a good look on you.” There was no attachment to the dig, no conviction. Aloof as always, careless for other people’s problems; for their feelings. “It’s an easy comparison to make, the two of you.”  
“And?”  
“You never stood a chance, even then.” Callous resentment lurked in his words, mingling with the sour joke, “even when you made me happy.”  
“I don't care about what he is to you. Or what you thought I was. It doesn't change who you are.”  
“I’ve never expected anyone to,” weight clings to the implication, _I never asked you to try._  
“It’s not fair of you, to pretend it was my fault, for caring.”  
“It was your fault for being naive. You knew I would betray you; that it was a matter of when, not if.”  
“That’s where you’re wrong,” his laughter is clipped, but not forced. “It wasn't betrayal, that insinuates some sort of trust. I can assure you, we never had anything of the sort. I knew who… what, you were.”  
“Yet, you have the audacity to be hurt by it. Reality is cruel, Lucilfer.”  
“We’re only human, after all.”

The last drops of whiskey met his tongue, bottle finally empty. The pack of cigarettes had long since been discarded, sitting lamely atop the ashes of it’s prior occupants. Both suggested it was time to leave, but the conversation was long from over. Years of company, boiled down to minutes of talk. Closure seemed more like a sick joke. If that's even what this was.

“Is this how you thought it would end?” Chrollo felt bile creeping up his throat, forcing it down. He already sounded pathetic, he didn't need to look it. “Is there where you thought you’d be?”  
“I thought I’d be dead. Thought _we’d_ be dead.”  
“That’s the worst part of planning on your death, even if you fail, part of you dies anyways.”  
“Sounds like we had the same vision.”  
“I wouldn't say had. Every birthday, part of me is just as shocked as I when I turned 18. It’s not always a pleasant surprise.”  
“Don't worry. You won't live to be 30.”  
“Here’s hoping.” A hand was in his hair, but it would take a few seconds to realize it was his own. Tangling in his own tresses, fingernails scraping his own scalp. A nervous habit, a remnant of childhood, far past. “What does Illumi think about your plans?”  
“Don't worry about him so much. This is about us.”  
“Us, in the past tense.” Not a question, but a statement. An acknowledgment of fact.  
“When else has there been an _us?_ ”  
“When else have you wanted to talk about the past? My questions are innocent, I swear.” A less drunk him would've put a hand on his heart. As he was, hand smacked awkwardly into shoulder. “Tell me about your new boyfriend.”  
“I never told people about you.”  
“We weren’t dating.” The strangest reality of them all. Emotional estrangement and aversion to commitment disguised as wanderlust. Confused, conflicted, feelings that didn’t lend themselves to labels. “It’s normal, you know, to talk about the people you love.”  
“I’ve never said I love him.” Hisoka’s relationship was still colored by ambiguous feelings, but of a slightly different nature. “And it’s never been normal, for me.”  
“A sick man’s norm is illness, it doesn't mean he wouldn’t be happier with his health.”  
“You're impossible to talk to, when you wax poetic like that. It doesn't matter, I never said I was in love with him.”  
“Not even to yourself? I find that hard to believe. What would happen if you did?”  
“If I told him I loved him? He’d probably kill me. Not that I’d mind.”  
“What if you actually meant it?”  
“If I meant it…” to be genuine, a new frontier. Introspection and fantasy drifted in the silence. More careful thought than a sober Hisoka would’ve ever allowed. “I don't know. He’s a tricky one.”  
“You can’t guess?”  
“Nothing to work with. No one’s ever loved him, not even his parents.”  
“Does he know that?” Laughter at someone's expense comes easier to them. A distraction from the strain they impose on each other. 

“Yeah, I think he does. He’d never admit to it, though. All this stuff he says, about what family means, about his little brothers, there's no way he doesn't. The only person he's trying to convince is himself.”  
“It’s sad, isn’t it? To live like that.”  
“It’s annoying. If I try to tell him he's wrong he'll just get pissed off at me.” A flicker of frustration broke through, speaking to the many fruitless encounters about this very subject. “And not in the fun way.”  
“People never like being told what to think. Especially not a guy like that.”  
“For your own sake, explain.”  
“See? I told you, you love him.” A giggle breaks through Chrollo’s lips, belying the new tension in his shoulders. Unpredictable at the best of times, drunk was a bad way to catch Hisoka. A worse way to piss him off. “Relax, I meant he’s independent. He's the kind of guy who’d never take orders from a stranger. Or a boyfriend.”  
“If he was more independent of his family, we wouldn't have half so many problems.”  
“So then you’d have to create twice as many. Not like that's hard for you.”  
“God, could you _try_ and not sound like my pissy ex?”  
“I could've tried, ten shots ago. Besides, I’m not your ex-anything. Not really.”  
“You’re definitely my ex- _something_. Maybe that's our problem, we never figured out what this was before it ended.”  
“How stupid are we, that we didn't even realize we were in a car until it crashed? Did this really have to go up in flames for us to realize it was flammable?”  
“We didn't know we were sinking until we hit the bottom.”  
“We didn't know it was raining till we were soaked.”  
“We didn’t know it was… fuck. I'm too drunk for this game.” 

Chrollo could melt against the floor, anything to stay like this. To be able to lose himself in this moment, a gift beyond compare. Apart, he was bombarded. The doubts, the whys, the how-dare-he's. At times like this, he remembered. The pain, the regrets, everything he endured for this ease, this relief. It felt like coming home.  
Granted, his home is full of snakes.

“I think our problem was that we never should've been more than friends. We wouldn't have lost a friendship.”  
“Probably not. We were good like this, weren't we?”  
“So good. So much better than all this other shit that we are.”  
“It’s a shame we didn't figure that out years ago. Before.” 

Before was a loaded word, laced with too many should’ve’s. Too poignant, salt in wounds too old to be so fresh. Before summarized their history. Too emotional, too reactive. They got along like a house on fire, with all the wreckage that assumes.

“We never could've stayed as friends. Even if we'd wanted to. Especially if we’d have known. We would’ve done it just to spite ourselves.”  
“It’s why this won't work now, right?”  
“What? No that’s- we aren't who we were then. It’d be different this time.”  
“No,” Hisoka pushed himself up, feet unsteady, “it wouldn't. You know that.”  
“Why not? We were friends years before we were more. Why can't we have that again?” It was more plea than demand. “What the hell is wrong with us?” 

Hisoka offered his hand, playing the gentleman persona he could never sustain. Chrollo accepted it gladly, too aware of the quantity of drink in his veins. Yanked upwards, he tumbled into Hisoka, face smashing into chest. It was what he'd expected, and though his nose hurt, he wasn't about to complain about the warmth. 

Hands hardly steadier than his own pushed him upright, resting on his shoulders. Hisoka’s expression was indecipherable, leaving him uncertain; a reaction he was more used to invoking than experiencing. Before he could settle on an answer, a soft kiss was pressed to his lips. Smooth and lingering, gentler than he'd ever know Hisoka to be.  
He didn't have the time to decide how he felt about that either, before it was over. Pulling away from him, Hisoka stared, searching for what, Chrollo would never know. For just a split second, he looked as sad and desperate as Chrollo felt, quickly replaced with a rueful grin.

“For what it's worth, I missed us too.” 

Chrollo nodded, as good a goodbye as he would ever receive. Hisoka wasted no time in leaving, gaze holding for just a moment more. Eyes trained squarely on his back, Chrollo wasn't sure he breathed until he was out of sight. The urge to cry, to sob, stuck in his chest. He let out his held breath though gritted teeth, shreds of his dignity enforcing composure.  
Under his breath, for only himself, he spoke it like a vow. The thought replayed in his head while he walked back to the hotel, stamping down all else with little consideration.

_You won't take anything more from me, not this time._

**Author's Note:**

> Still working through some writers block (as well as some illness things) so I'd like to say thank you for everyone who's been waiting so patiently for my other updates! I promise they'll be done soon. Still playing around with a different writing style, feel free to tell me what you think of it!


End file.
